Eladio Ruiz, 62, spent 38 years crawling up and down central Florida citrus grove rows, inspecting for greening disease and storm damage before he retired three years back. He’s got a scar snaking up his left forearm from a falling branch in 2017, a habit of twisting his faded Gators ball cap when he’s nervous, and a 20-year grudge against his late wife’s cousin Ronnie that he’s never bothered to justify to anyone but himself. His wife Lucia called it his most tedious flaw back before she died of ovarian cancer five years prior, and he’d laughed then, never guessed he’d spend most of his retirement avoiding all family events just to skip running into Ronnie, all over a lost 2003 bowl game bet that forced him to wear a FSU jersey to work for an entire week at the height of Lucia’s first round of chemo. The only reason he showed up to the town’s Fourth of July cookout this year was his 16-year-old granddaughter Mila, who’d texted him three times in 24 hours begging him to come watch her win the cake walk.
He’s leaned against the tailgate of his beat-up 2008 Silverado, half-empty Bud Light sweating in his hand, half-watching Mila bounce with her friends near the cake table, when a kid sprinting past with a super soaker slams into the side of a woman walking toward the coolers. She stumbles sideways, hip knocking hard against his thigh, and grabs his bicep to steady herself, fingers calloused where they press into the worn cotton of his work shirt. He smells coconut sunscreen and the faint, sharp sweet of orange blossom on her hair, and when she looks up at him, hazel eyes crinkling at the corners like she’s already amused, he forgets how to speak for two full seconds.
She says her name’s Marisol, 58, a mobile large-animal vet who just moved to the county three weeks prior, crashing on Ronnie’s couch while she closes on a small rental property on the edge of the old orange grove district. His jaw tightens at the mention of Ronnie’s name, but he doesn’t step away, not when she leans in closer to hear him over a group of teens setting off firecrackers in the empty field across the street, her shoulder pressed firm to his, her chipped deep-blue nail polish glinting when she gestures at her beat-up van parked two rows over. She complains that the three old citrus trees in her rental’s backyard look half dead, no one she’s asked can tell her if they’re savable or if she’ll have to cut them down, and he nearly offers to come look before he remembers the grudge, remembers he told himself he’d never bother getting close to anyone again after Lucia died, that the grief of losing someone wasn’t worth the mess of letting them in.
He makes a noncommittal noise instead, and he can tell she notices the shift in his mood, but she doesn’t push, just takes a sip of her cherry hard seltzer, dribbling a little down her wrist and onto his when a loud firework goes off behind them, making her jump. She laughs, swiping at the sticky spot on his arm with the hem of her linen shirt, and the soft brush of the fabric against his skin sends a jolt up his spine he hasn’t felt in 10 years, half embarrassment, half something warmer he’d thought died with Lucia. He’s halfway to offering her a napkin from the pack in his truck when Ronnie saunters over, holding two beers, a stupid grin on his face.
Eladio tenses, ready to make an excuse and leave, before Ronnie holds out a hand, and pulls a crumpled, faded FSU jersey out from under his arm. “Found this in the back of my closet last week,” Ronnie says, loud enough that Marisol snorts into her seltzer. “Been holding onto it 20 years waiting to say I’m sorry. I knew Lucia was sick back then, I shouldn’t have pushed the bet, shouldn’t have rubbed the loss in. Been a dick about it ever since.” Eladio stares at the jersey for a long minute, then laughs, loud and rough, and takes the beer Ronnie’s holding out. The grudge fizzles out so fast he wonders why he held onto it so long in the first place.
Ronnie wanders off a minute later to yell at the teens setting off firecrackers too close to the picnic tables, and Eladio turns back to Marisol, twisting his ball cap in his hands like he’s 16 again asking a girl to the homecoming dance. “I used to inspect citrus groves for the county,” he says, before he can chicken out. “I’ll come out to your place tomorrow morning, take a look at those trees for you. Got a jar of homemade orange marmalade in my truck I can bring, too, Lucia’s old recipe.” Her face lights up, and she tucks a strand of gray-streaked hair behind her ear, scribbling her address on the back of a raffle ticket she pulls out of her jeans pocket, pressing it into his palm. She kisses his cheek quick, warm and soft, before she turns to go help Ronnie yell at the teens.
He shows up at her rental at 7 the next morning, marmalade jar on the passenger seat, a pocketknife and his old grove inspection notebook tucked in his work boot. She’s waiting for him on the front porch, barefoot, two mugs of black coffee steaming in her hands, the sun coming up over the grove behind her painting her skin gold. He grabs the jar from the seat, boots crunching on the gravel drive, and doesn’t even hesitate when he leans in to kiss her cheek before stepping onto the porch.
